​For the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club the Victoria Day weekend marks the first major events of the season. Over five days the club held the OSGA55+ district games; an Open House and finally a prestigious open fours tournament on Victoria Day.​It may surprise some people to learn that the sport of lawn bowls can become addictive, as many of the Cobourg members can testify. Indeed it is such an addictive sport that King Henry V111 was forced to ban the playing of lawn bowls because it was affecting the output of fletchers who made bows and arrows. The exception was of course by the wealthy who could spend all their time at play. These days you need neither be wealthy nor have lots of time to spare to play the sport and the club was hoping to attract more addicts with an open house on Saturday May 20th.

This was very well attended and as well as receiving free instruction from club members a BBQ lunch was available. This was organised by Baylee van Steijn who used an RBC150 grant to raise funds for ‘Northumberland Food For Thought’. Donations from visitors totalled $626 which will go to a very good cause. Click here for photos from the event

The winners of the OSGA55+ district games on Thursday May 18th were Ralph and Norma Stoffers and Melanie Duras from our club who won all three of their round robin games to take the gold medal. The silver medal winners, also from Cobourg, with two wins and one loss were Bill and Louisa Arthur and Nan Hendren.

On Victoria Day eighteen teams from Oshawa, Pickering, Peterborough, Cosburn Park, Campbellford as well as the home club competed in the Open Fours tournament which was once again sponsored by Lauria Hyundai.

Each team played three twelve end games with the wins and cumulative points scored deciding the prize winners. The 2016 winners of the open fours (Cobourg members Dan and Sharyl Ann Milligan and Baylee and Ben van Steijn) came back to defend their title but after winning their first two games lost out to a team from Peterborough led by Bob Reynolds. The Reynolds team placed second because although they had a perfect 3 wins they were beaten by Bob Matthews Oshawa team who also had 3 wins but 39 points compared to Reynolds 37. Pictured are Cobourg President Nan Hendren with the winning team of Anna Panton, Rick Tompkins, Alice Matthews and Bob Matthews. ​Next weekend sees the start of the District playdowns which lead to Ontario Championships. The club will be represented by two ladies fours teams and one mens’ fours team at the playdowns in Whitby. Meanwhile back at the club there will be the first in club tournament of the season. Visitors are welcome at all events.

I will start this piece on the Canadian junior championships by talking about an award made to our greens keeper Ralph Stoffers. Why you might ask. Well, read on and all will be clear

Ralph has been volunteer greens keeper for the last five years. Despite having no previous experience of greens keeping he has, through hard work and much research, produced greens that become better every year and are recognised by visiting bowlers as amongst the best (if not the best) around. To recognise his achievements and the many hours of voluntary work he was presented with a certificate of appreciation from the Ontario Lawn Bowls Association during the anniversary tournament at the weekend.

Two people who have benefited from the excellent Cobourg greens are juniors Ben and Baylee van Steijn. (Now you see where I am going with this) Access to such good greens has undoubtedly helped them in their lawn bowling careers. Ben has also been working with Ralph to learn about greens keeping and that plus his work at the Cobourg Ecology garden resulted in him receiving a scholarship from the Cobourg Horticultural Society, which seems rather appropriate at this time as it was Horticultural Society members who formed the lawn bowling club in 1907.

Ben and sister Baylee were in Vancouver last week competing in the Canadian junior championships, their second appearance at the championships. After the round robin Ben had a 4-2 record and 12 points. However to have a chance at competing for a medal 15 points were required. He finished tied for 5th place in a field of 18 – an excellent performance.

Sister Baylee finished in fourth place in 2015 but this time went one better to finish third and take home a bronze medal. Struggling with flu throughout the three days of competition she finished the round robin in fourth place with a 4-3 record. Her opponent in the bronze medal game, Emma Boyd (BC) had beaten her 18-10 in their round robin match and when Boyd took an 11-4 lead (first to 18 points wins) it looked bad for Baylee. However in an epic match she clawed her way back to take bronze with an 18-17 win. Her bronze medal confirms her place in the Canadian youth development squad for another year.

The Canadian under 18 championships, sponsored by Cobourg’s MVP Sports were held in Saskatoon between August 4th and 6th and Ben and Baylee van Steijn were making their first appearance at national level. This was a tough challenge for both of them with the boys having to play nine round robin games over three days and the girls playing five games. At the end of Day 1 Ben was 3-0 and Baylee 1-1. However the second day proved more difficult and Ben was unable to record another win. He recovered well on the third day to finish with two wins and a 5-4 record which was not quite enough to get into the medal round and he finished fifth overall. Baylee finished her round robin with a 2-3 record which was good enough to get her into the bronze medal game. Unfortunately she lost 21-16 in very wet and difficult conditions but still finished the championship in fourth place. By finishing fourth she also qualified for the inaugural Canadian youth development squad for the next year. This was an excellent performance by both players and the experience will serve them well as they move forward in their lawn bowling careers.

The Victoria Day long weekend is always a busy time for the club with the first open tournament of the season and an open house to allow visitors to “Give it a Try”. Last year the weather was a factor in both events with cold wet weather that affected the attendance at the Open House and restricted the number of greens that could be used for the tournament. Thankfully the weather was much kinder this year.We had 27 visitors to the Open House on Saturday May 16th and there was lots of activity on the greens as they were shown the basics of the sport and rolled some bowls. Many showed an immediate aptitude for lawn bowling and we had 7 new members sign up during the event. Many of those who did not sign up on the day are intending to come back and take further instruction during the June Wednesday evening beginner sessions. Thanks to those members who were on hand throughout the day to help with registration, instruction and providing refreshments. We had an excellent Open Fours tournament on Victoria Day. 72 competitors (18 teams) were playing and there were some very strong teams from Oshawa, Peterborough, Port Hope, Whitby and Cosburn Park. We had a new sponsor for the event, Lauria Hyundai, and two of their vehicles were on display in the club grounds for competitors to view during the course of the tournament. Many players remarked upon how good the greens are for early season. The only concern on the day of the tournament was the threat of thunderstorms. However they never materialized and it was a perfect day for bowling. Each team played 3 games of 12 ends and after the second round Doug Marshall’s Oshawa team was in the lead with 2 wins and 33 points. However they lost their final game 7-14 to the eventual winners from Cosburn Park, Toronto, skipped by Bob Bates. The five Cobourg teams had varied results and none was in the prize money. Pauline Hill’s team was the most successful with 2 wins and 40 points and a seventh place finish. Dave Shirley’s team also had 2 wins with 31 points and finished in ninth.The full results were: Trophy winners with 3 wins and 40 points Bob Bates team from Cosburn Park.Second place with 3 wins and 36 points Lorne Schiel’s team from Whitby. Third with 2 wins and 42 points Bob Matthews team from Oshawa. Fourth place with 2 wins and 41 points Jim Butler’s team from Oshawa. The prize for one game high went to the Peterborough team skipped by Bob Reynolds. They had 41 points.

Overall it was a great start to the tournament season and hopefully that will continue as the many tournaments are almost fully subscribed and some have a waiting list.

The Earl Mayer junior bowler of the year award goes to the male and female Under 18 bowlers who accumulate the most points over the season in OLBA sanctioned tournaments. Baylee won the award in 2012 and repeated her success this year. It was a close run thing as she finished with 55 points compared to second placed Aislinn Wood of Midland who had 54 points. Congratulations Baylee.

In the boys section Ben Van Steijn was not able to repeat his win of 2013 but he did finish in third place overall. However, Ben, playing with Aislinn Wood won the Ontario open drawn pairs championship.

When we take Will Richardson's silver medal at the Ontario under 18 championships into account it is clear that this has been another good season for these excellent junior bowlers.

Monday September 9th and Ralph Stoffers, Carol Dewey, Dave and Kathleen Shirley, Louisa and I are at the club at 7.00am on a cold Monday morning – not the time we would normally bowl. But this is no normal bowling day – this is bowling in a movie! That was the first day of shooting on the made for TV movie ‘Rocky Road’ –a story about a young executive who loses his high flying job in the city and returns to his small town home to help his father run an ailing ice cream business. So what’s the connection with lawn bowling? The script calls for the male lead, played by Mark Salling from the show Glee, to be challenged to a game of lawn bowls ( I have no idea why). So we were supposed to be bowling in the background as the actors played out their scenes. But, to our surprise, we were required for walk on parts and to actually appear on camera as well as provide background bowling scenes. I have to say that we were awesome! If our scenes ever make it past the cutting room floor you will see what I mean. If we are left on the cutting room floor you’ll just have to take my word for it. Lots of the bowling scenes were fake in that we could not bowl the length of the green. Because of cameras and other equipment we could only roll our bowls about 20 feet, so our bowling action looked more like it was short mat bowling rather than regular lawn bowling. We had fun and it was interesting to see how things are done on a movie set but there was an awful lot of waiting around and I could not believe how many times we had to repeat a scene. The Assistant Director kept coming to us and saying “that was great lawn bowlers but we’re just going to have to do it again”. A pity the professional actors couldn’t get it right! The location for the movie is supposed to be Vermont so anything that showed Cobourg or anything Canadian had to be moved. That’s why the US flag was flying and the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club sign was turned back to front. On Wednesday September 18th the crew was back at the club to film an internal scene where some of the actors were playing cards in the club house. We were not involved in that but I was there throughout to keep an eye on things. The windfall for the club was the fees we were paid for the use of the club. In addition to the fees for the two days of filming we also picked up fees for use of the washrooms on three days when scenes were being shot in Church Street and in Victoria Park.

Since I joined the club in 2010 the Tuesday night jitney has always been the best attended. I guess it is the combination of nice summer nights, the band playing in Victoria Park and the knowledge that it will be well attended and therefore a good social as well as competitive evening.

I'm usually playing so don't therefore get the opportunity to take photos of the jitneys but this week I was on the verandah so here are some photos that I took with some light hearted observations!

We held a very successful event this morning when we hosted a visit from North Shore Probus. This was arranged by one our members, Kathy Maclean, who is also a Probus member. Events like this have a dual purpose. Firstly they bring in Revenue for the club and secondly they provide an opportunity for people who may not otherwise think about lawn bowling to give it a try. Over 30 people attended and most of them tried bowling. We split the bowlers into groups of three or four and gave them lessons. After a few trial ends the groups played 4321 for about an hour and judging from the reactions thoroughly enjoyed it. Hopefully we will see some of the people returning for another session. After the bowling the Probus club remained at the club for their lunch which their own members had prepared. I’d like to thank Kathy Maclean for organizing the event and also the club members who gave up their time to teach our sport and help the groups with their 4321 competition. Thank you Eve Gorringe, Marg Salley, Marilyn MacMillan, Ralph Stoffers, Helen Beaton, Dianne Lauder and Louisa Arthur. Next week the Northumberland Probus Club will be visiting for a similar event